Launching of the European Network of Anti-Fascist Parliamentarians

The press conference for the launching of the European Network of Antifascist Parliamentarians took place last Wednesday 4th of December in the European Parliament in Brussels. This European Network together with the European Antifascist Manifesto have been presented by 4 speakers, the President of GUE/NGL (Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left) Gabi Zimmer (Die Linke), the Greek MP Dimitris Tsoukalas (SYRIZA), the German MP Annette Groth (Die Linke) and the Greek MEP Nikos Chountis (SYRIZA).

The European Network of Antifascist Parliamentarians is already supported by 25 MPs from Greece, Israel, the Spanish State, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Catalonia, Pais Valencia, Ireland, Luxembourg and Germany, while the European Antifascist Manifesto has already been signed by more than 110 MPs from different European countries (53 are MPs of Syriza)
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Here below is the text (in English) of the presentation of the European Antifascist Manifesto made by comrade Dimitris Tsoukalas at last Wednesday’s the press conference in the European Parliament of Brussels.

First of all, the European Antifascist Manifesto wants to sound the alarm, the emergency against the deadly threat represented by the impetuous rise of far-right racist and neo-fascist forces throughout Europe! Because we have now to admit it: This threat is actually direct and immediate. It does not concern anymore just one country, as for example my country, Greece, but all of us. Who could dare say today that we are not witnessing in Europe the come back and the resurrection of the worst nightmares of the thirties?

The aim of the European Antifascist Manifesto is clear: Unite antifascist forces, that is trade unions, social movements, political parties and, most of all, citizens in order to build, as soon as possible, a powerful unitary European antifascist movement. That is why we do not want to substitute already existing antifascist movements or networks of any kind. We do nor want to divide, we want to unite because it is more true than ever that… united we stand, divided we fall. Only united beyond national frontiers we could take initiatives such as the ones we are now beginning to prepare, the organization of a European Congress of antifascist intellectuals, writers and artists or the European networking of football antifascist supporters clubs.

This European Antifascist Movement has to be the heir of the great antifascist traditions in our continent, has to build bridges with this precious antifascist past that id now almost forgotten. It is no accident that our Manifesto ends with the phrase “This time, history must not be repeated”. Yes, we have to learn from history in order not to repeat the errors of the twenties and thirties that led to the worst tragedy of human history, to Auschwitz, to Birkenau and Treblinka, to a World War with its 60 millions of dead people.

If this European antifascist movement wants to fight successfully the neo-fascist threat, it has to invest and to organize its forces in the long run, to reject any sectarianism as well as to combat far-right in all fields of human activities, without any exception. And the only way to do that is to trust common people, to encourage their networking where they live and work, study and develop their capacities. Why? Because nobody else than common people can translate generic antifascism in concrete demands, programs and most of all, to antifascist actions. That is why the European Network of Antifascist Parliamentarians we are launching today, offers a first concrete example of this kind of antifascist networking we are proposing to all European citizens who want to resist effectively the terrible far-right and neo-fascist threat. Our antifascist resistance has to be democratically conducted by the popular masses themselves.

Dear friends and comrades, we have to admit that more difficult days are coming and that we are now engaged in a race against neo-fascism and racist barbarism. We have to organize and act now and not tomorrow, because tomorrow could be too late. However we are confident that what we are doing is the right thing. As said the German theologian and martyr of the anti-nazi resistance Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The only fight which is lost is that which we give up”…